Theodore Roosevelt and the Judge: 1904

Theodore Roosevelt ran for President in 1904…

The Big Surprise

…but the big surprise was that he was already President.

He had planned to run for POTUS in ’04 some years back. He may have dreamed about running in ’04 a dozen years earlier when he was too young for the position. But the ’04 year was definitely on his youthful agenda.

Garret Hobart, deceased

Meanwhile, as surprises go, with “many a slip,” TR was coerced into the Vice Presidential spot in 1900, following the sudden death of William McKinley’s Vice President Garret Hobart several months earlier. McKinley and Hobart had gotten on extremely well, and had he lived, Hobart would surely have been on the ticket again.

In addition, following the mercifully short War with Spain in 1898, TR, the Colonel of the now legendary Rough Riders, a volunteer unit, had become a national hero. Barely 40, he was…